September in Newcastle

Four months left of our year in Oz. We spend increasingly more time talking about what it will be like to go home, to be home, to leave here, to look back on this year and how, in god’s good name, we are going to get all of our stuff back home.

It’s been a contemplative time of late. Mark and I have spent a lot of time talking about what this all means—his school experience, my not working, so badly missing our friends and family, quality of life, culture, home…these are all big things. All this is to say that you are being duly warned that this is a much less newsy and much more musing sort of blog. Feel free to skim if you are not the musing type.

These last 6 weeks have been the longest stretch that we’ve been home, without traveling and without visitors. Our last visitors were Lisa and Josh (Mark’s sister and her son) in July. And we won’t have anymore visitors until November when Shannon and Suzanne come out.

Our only trip since we returned from Queensland has been an overnight into the country, the bush. We went to a little town called Gloucester, 2 hours from here, and its resident National Forest, Barrington Tops, named after the rocky “peaks” that stand about 1000 feet above the scattered valley towns. These little country towns do not center around weekend tourist activity as all the shops close around 1:00 on Saturday and are not open at all on Sundays so I can’t tell you how the central shopping district was. In line with most little Australian country towns we’ve driven through, this one was home to rows of efficient little houses made of brick

and siding and a 2-3 block CBD (central business district.) There was a sweet little river winding through town, necessitating little bridges and meandering streets. If you follow the river upstream, you venture up the center of a valley whose nooks and crannies cradle well-kept farm houses each separated from the next by a good quarter-mile radius of open space. We drove to the top of a high hill in the center of the valley and, in every direction, the green and yellow land rolled up one side of a horse-spotted hill and down the other side to a river bed and then back up and over again.

We received a tip to look for a track (hiking trail) called the Hidden Treasure Track up behind a B&B where a now defunct gold mine crumbles. We were surprised to find this track in the middle of the rain forest, not 20 minutes up a slow road from that wide open farm land. Back in the rainforest, we were happy to explore the now familiar strangler fig trees, elaborate giants with their root systems above ground and innumerable tree trunks that push themselves up to the top of the rainforest canopy.

We hiked on day two as well and then stopped off in an even smaller town on the drive back home where we were surprised to find one store open that sold gifts and used books and coffee and antique furniture. We bought a very old copy of Oliver Twist.

But other than that trip, we’ve been in Newcastle now for over 6 weeks straight. The weather’s been winter which means that it’s been either cold and sunny or cold and rainy or cold and windy. Cold, meaning about 50-60 degrees both outside and inside the house. We are very lucky to have a gas fireplace that heats up the family room as many families don’t have any heat sources here, save for the portable space heater they carry around with them like a seeing-eye dog. Aussies complain about the cold. But they continue to build houses without insulation or central heating. It baffles Mark and me. Someone recently suggested that Aussies aren’t as driven to put barriers between themselves and the outside environment as Americans are. But short of that explanation, the lack of indoor heating continues to perplex us.

Everyone keeps promising us that come September 1^st, spring will arrive like someone’s flipped a switch. Well, September 1^st and 2^nd were glorious. Absolutely, as promised, warm and sunny with no more wind. It just made you want to spin around in circles singing some sort of opera song. And then September 3^rd came and with it, the wind and the rain and the gray clouds too and it’s been that way ever since. Someone may have flipped a switch but they didn’t leave it on for very long. However, the flowers and buds that have burst out of almost every bush and tree around reassure me that they know something that I can’t see yet. Spring is on its way if it is not in fact here already. We don’t leave our gas fire on all night long anymore, I have to run earlier if I want to see the sunrise from first glimmer and when I go out to throw food on the barbie, I don’t have to turn the verandah light on anymore because it is still light out even up until 6:00. I remember this time last year when we began corresponding with our exchange partner, Prue, and she told me that spring had sprung while, in Colorado, we were watching the sunlight diminish and the trees change color. That was odd. Still is, knowing that you are saying goodbye to summer while we are rubbing our palms together in anticipation, here it comes!

So life in Newcastle. Let’s start with Mark. He has essentially settled into a routine of ups and downs at school, trying to focus more on the former than the latter. The parts that frustrate him used to have so much more power than the parts that make him feel useful or entertained. But he's recently recognized that and is now able to tip the scales in favor of the happier perspective more often than not.

He told me after school yesterday that one student in his Year 10 class said to him recently, “I reckon this is the worst class you’ve ever taught, huh, sir?” Mark thought, "Indeed, mate." But then, when he returned to the classroom after missing 3 days to go skiing with 50 students, that same class told him, in no uncertain terms, “You can never, ever leave us for that long again, sir.”

Mark spent 4 days at the snow with 4 other teachers and 50 kids last week. The kids were all from the top classes of Year 9 and 10. They were a joy to be with. They needed very little management or supervision--a circumstance hard to picture happening smoothly in America. He enjoyed being able to teach skiing again to kids who were so enthralled with the snow and learning this new sport.

He’s really enjoying his Wednesday afternoon sport with the 6 golfers he’s recruited. That has been a highlight. The question he asks himself from time to time is how will his perspective of teaching back in Thornton be changed by this experience? We won’t know until we know but it is interesting to try to imagine how he’ll see classroom management issues, teacher-student relationships, curriculum planning, discipline strategies, etc once he gets back.

He has noticed that he is getting more and more proficient at teaching these kids each week and that, given a few more years here, he'd probably have it down. That's a good feeling for him, I reckon.

Jordan next. She continues to love, love, love school. She remains close with the now three girls that are her favorite. In several different ways, she’s made it clear that she doesn’t feel like the new kid anymore. She courageously plays all the games now where in the beginning of the year, if she was intimidated by a game, she’d stay close to the teacher. There’s only been one time in the last week when she’s held onto me when I’ve dropped her off. Otherwise, she sees her friends when we arrive and I have to work hard to get her attention to let her know I’m leaving.

If I had to come up with the one thing in Australia I am most grateful for, it would be the kids’ school. I’ve never felt so comfortable leaving them in the morning and so consistently reassured by their behavior and their reports and their teachers’ reports that this place is nearly idyllic for them.

Gabe is also doing very well in his little life. He wakes up in the morning and is ready to go to school an hour before we leave the house during which time he plays. At school, he has 29 other children that he plays with all day long. When he gets home, if he doesn’t go to someone’s house or bring someone home with him, he darts across the street to the park to play with Sam and Ellie until dark. We have to stifle our laughter and keep from rolling our eyes when we ask him to help set the table and his response is, “I haven’t had enough time to play.” He’s learning to stop saying that upon our request.

And then there’s me. This last month and a half has been the most surreal for me. I spend the bulk of my time home alone writing or reading or working on assignments for my writing class. I have not been busy with planning travel or traveling or hosting guests. I have settled into the reality that my social life here is sparse, which is sort of misleading as I have found a few people with whom I connect and spend time with during the week. But let’s just say there are more people actually reading this blog, word for word, than there are people in Australia I could call friends. I have recently gotten frustrated that I can’t do any projects here. I can’t buy, make, paint, build, refinish, or decorate anything here because 1. this isn’t my house and 2. I would have to find a way to take it home. I went so far as to bring home a piece of driftwood from

the beach a few weeks ago just so I could paint something.

The weather has made it unappealing to take day trips from here and besides, I get lonely exploring by myself. This is a far cry from the days when I was running around all the time trying to maintain my family, my home, my business, my running schedule and all four of our social lives while I dreamt about freedom and free time and maybe someday having enough time to write a novel. And here I am with all the freedom and free time a mother and wife could ask for and I’m actually writing a novel but I’m finding it hard to stay focused on what I have while I have it. It sounds romantic and sometimes it feels luxurious. But it can also feel crazy-making. I’ve never spent this much time alone before. And I’m still not able to tell you whether or not I like it.

On a different and more professional note, I have recently visited two agencies here in Newcastle that work with parenting and post-natal depression. It is interesting to see the similarities in types of services and the differences in types of funding. This socialized-style health care delivery system has many advantages—people are getting services, they are getting them for free and they are all centrally located or packaged so one person doesn’t have to search all over town to find what they need. The downsides, however, are that the programs are under-

funded and therefore not able to meet all the needs. So while I’m raving about all the great work they are doing here, they are struggling with support groups that ideally have 8 participants but twice that show up. If only we had that problem. And they used to follow women for 12 months post-natally but now can only follow them for 6 months because their client loads are so high.

On the traveling note, I’m registered to run the Sydney marathon on September 21^st so the 4 of us will spend another weekend in the city. Mark and I also have tickets to go see a show at the Sydney Opera House in November and Gerry and Jeremy and their two daughters, one of our favorite Aussie families, have agreed to take the kids overnight at their house. The last of the three school holidays is coming up at the end of September. We’ve decided to spend those 2 weeks on the New South Wales northern coast. We’ll rent a mini-van and take bikes and boogie boards and stay in little cottages on the beach. I’m looking very forward to this trip because we are going to spend time at our favorite places and get a more in-depth look at that area. But I’m a little sad that we will be leaving Australia without visiting Tasmania. Next time. There’s no way we could do it all.

This painting was done by an Aboriginal man for our family. The hands in the center are our hands. The painting has a story in it which we'll tell you when you come to see it in our house in Lakewood.

I’ll wrap this up with a few examples of what it is like to be American in Australia.

• I was running the other day and an older man rode up to me on his bike. We got to talking and he asked where I was from, Canada or America? I’m asked that all the time, but typically people just ask if I’m Canadian because, and this may come as no surprise, Americans aren’t offended if someone assumes they are Canadian but Canadians may bristle if they’re mistaken for American. Anyway, this man on his bike told me how much he loved America. He’s been to both coasts. He says he’d live there if he could—beautiful country, cheaper food and gas, great night life, “like in Las Vegas.” He says if he could, he’d live in San Diego so he could pop down to Tijuana for some pot. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that we don’t all party in Vegas every weekend nor did I want to crush his romantic fantasy of having to wrestle his way into the outlaw town of Tijuana to score dope when he’d find plenty of it in just about every urban and suburban neighborhood in the United States. Good ol’ US of A—that cheap, partying, pot-smoking country of ours.

• I was listening to the radio yesterday morning when the d.j.s mentioned our election process. They were talking about how long our candidates spend campaigning. “You think we have to suffer throughout a long presidential race,” the d.j. said, “and ours is only 6 weeks. In America, presidential campaign lasts like 3 years! Those poor people must get so sick of it.” Well?

• I realized a while back that when I talk to people, they aren’t really listening to the words I say as much as to my voice. I can tell because while I’m talking, they stare at me without responding to my intonations as I tell a story or ask a question. They just stare. Then when I’m done, they don’t respond right away. They don’t even blink for a moment or two. Then they blink to snap themselves out of it and eventually, they get around to responding--oftentimes after I’ve repeated just enough of my story to give them a bit of a clue as to what I was talking about. I feel like a strange yet interesting person worthy of more observation.
  

• Mark said while he was on the ski trip with four other teachers, he felt very American. Their ribald humor and general conversations were just different enough for him to feel like an outsider most of the time.
  

• When I left the US, I was a bit nervous to come here and admit from whence I came. I was afraid people would assume I would be loud and rude and demanding and egotistical and wasteful and self-centered--generally full of myself and uninterested in learning about the outside world. I do love America’s beauty and geographical diversity but I’m not all that proud of its behavior on the world’s playground. What’s changed for me is not necessarily that I am “proud” to be American--that’d be like being proud of being a sloppy eater or a bumbling clown. So proud is not the word. But I have discovered a profound sense of connection to America that I would not have known was there had I never left. I feel American, for better or for worse. I come from there, it is home.

The moment I realized that I missed America and with all its character defects was during the ½ marathon I ran in July. All along the way, spectators were encouraging runners with their subdued “Well done’s”. It sounded comically British to me. I expected to look over and see a man dressed as a butler holding a tea cup with his pinky sticking out and his bent elbow paralleling the ground saying, “well done.” There was a turn-around point in the race so for about a mile or so, the road was split down the middle and the fastest runners were making their way back so we were seeing them coming toward us. Now there were runners offering their well done’s to other runners, clapping like they were on a golf course. Until, from somewhere not too far behind me, I heard a scream, a voice-straining cry that rang out over the hills we were running on. “Go Phil! Yeah! You rock, dude!” I felt like E.T. You could tell as much by his volume and his verbiage as you could from his accent that this inappropriate, attention-getting, wild man was my people. Home. My face broke into a huge grin that no one saw and I laughed out loud. How many times have I scowled at such juvenile displays of male bonding? This behavior was precisely the kind of behavior I didn’t want to be associated with when I first arrived here. But on that day, in the hills of the Hunter Valley, I fell in love with America.

Here are the kids making a fairy house and the last picture is of the friend they had watching them just above their heads the whole time.

The halfway mark

Well, we are halfway through our adventure. I was thinking, Mark and I spent about 4 months planning to get married and then we got married and we are still married. We spent 18 months planning to have children and then we had children and we still have those children. We spent 5 years planning this exchange to Australia and then we went to Australia and in 5 months, it is going to be over.

So where are we with it all? I’ll start with the whole reason we are here: Mark. He is having a very polarized experience, to the point that I can never tell who is going to walk in the door at 3:45 every avo (afternoon). Some days he comes home aggravated, telling me about the two or three kids who make it virtually impossible for him to teach the remaining 20 who seem to want to learn. He lists the ways he thinks administration should be dealing with these situations. He tells me about the holes and gaps in the system that make him feel ineffective.

Other days or sometimes even an hour later, he tells me about the connections he’s making with kids. My recent favorite story is about how the P.E. teacher asked him to bring a few golf clubs to school so he could give her gym class some golf lessons. He noticed one boy who seemed to have a natural swing. He recruited six kids, including this one, to sign up to do golf on Sport Day. So this term, he is taking this group of kids to the golf course for an hour on Wednesdays. He thinks this one boy, who never picked up a club before, might become a golfer. Who knows where it might lead him. And there are other stories like this. Students here, just like in CO, tell him that they like maths for the first time because of him; that they like to come to his class even though they hate maths; that they are learning more than they’ve ever learned in maths. And his lowest functioning class is doing more work in his class than other teachers would ever dare to expect out of them. He’s brought his gift here and has found ways to connect with kids just like he has always done in Thornton.

I’m not passing this blog by Mark for his approval this time. It is important to me to write this down because watching his progress at Cardiff High School has been one of the biggest parts of this Australian experience for me. I am in awe of his perseverance but, then again, anyone can do anything for a year. What is more impressive is that he is able to shine like he can shine, like few teachers in the schools across the world can shine, even on days when he feels powerless, clueless, frustrated, aggravated, angry, resentful, whiney and jealous. He can still walk into the classroom and connect with every single student in ways that matter to those kids. He is still teaching.

I don’t know if he’ll be able to leave this country knowing that he did more than most could do while he was here but I know it. And even though I have to muddle through his whinging and self-pity that sometimes oozes through our house for hours on end, I find myself in awe of the teacher that he is. So who knows what the second half of this teaching experience will bring him. And who knows if he’ll ever find peace in this foreign system for himself. But I am pretty sure that his ability to connect with and teach students will continue to rise above any of his personal opinions and complaints about the way they run things around here. I know you would all be very proud of him.

Other than his job, Mark is enjoying bike riding and has an eye on a 170 km bike ride along The Great Ocean Road in October. We’ll see if we can make that happen. He continues to enjoy the family time that he has in the mornings and all afternoon and evening. And he’s eagerly awaiting spring when it warms up enough to get back in the water. He’s ready to get back on the boogie board.

In other news, Lisa, Mark’s stepsister, and Josh, her son just left us tonight after spending 5 wonderful days here visiting. Their trip began with a Disney tour to Cairns, Uluru and Sydney and ended with a stint here in Newcastle. We loved having them here to share a bit of our life with. I realized, as we tried to think of things to do during the day that Josh might enjoy while Gabe and Jordan were in school, that Newcastle is not a tourist spot. It is a home for people who live and work, not a tourist attraction with amusement parks or museums or zoos. In the winters here, if it is not sunny, people stay home. If it is sunny, it is still cold and often windy so people stay home then too. The beaches are like ghost towns and, when it is windy, the whirling sand makes that seem even more so. We like being here this year. It has given us the opportunity to just be home and be together. But it occurred to me this week, while trying to entertain guests, that this is not a tourist spot. I have lived in touristy towns ever since I was 15 years old. This is the first time since living in the suburbs of Detroit that my town is not a destination for anyone. It’s odd.

We were sad to see them leave tonight. Like they are going back home and we can’t come yet. Not that I want to. I would be devastated if our time here was over right now. But when people come and then they go back, I feel the teensiest bit abandoned. Just the slightest bit.

The kids are doing well. Jordan took a week to get over her feverish sickness, whatever it was. But now that she’s well again, she’s well again and we’re all happy about that. They are both enjoying their friends, their teachers and their school life. Gabe continues to go across the street everyday after school to play with the neighbor kids. We have playdates and go to birthday parties and I feel like I keep writing the same thing about them on every update. They truly are having a great time. They haven’t said they are missing anything about home in quite a while. Jordan says she is struggling to remember what her bedroom in Lakewood looks like.

Here we are celebrating Jordan and Josh's birthdays...

Gabe and Jordan both talk Australian far better and more often than Mark or I, even though Mark and I try much harder than they do. I was trying, just today, to say the word ‘fire’ the way I heard a man say it as I passed him on the street. I contorted my mouth, lowered my voice, and hung my head just so and I still sounded like I was from Texas rather than Oz. Gabe nailed it on his first try.

And then there’s me. I finally, after six long months of working almost daily on my book, have a plot! It is amazing how hard novel-writing is for this unschooled, unguided, aspiring writer. But I think I might finally have something I can really wrap my pen around so we’ll see what happens next. I’ve been reading a lot, trying to educate myself on the craft of writing and many authors have reported that it takes them about 2-3 years to write a novel and that the first one or two or sometimes three finished manuscripts never saw the light of day. It was their fourth attempt that finally had enough merit to be bound and sold. Some days that is encouraging and other days very discouraging. I will be sure not to quit my day job, after, of course, this year of not having one.

Other than writing, I am happy to report an increasingly active social life. I have a few friends now with whom I think I’ll stay in touch after we go and who might even come visit us in CO. I am enjoying getting to know these people and having people to turn to right here when I need help or commiseration or guidance or companionship. I was hoping to have people here I’d miss and I think now I will.

The weather is always something people in America ask about so I’ll tell you that it is winter, winter, winter. Time-wise, it is the equivalent of February here which is when I tend to get the most sick of winter in CO. So it is not surprising that I’m pretty much over winter here as well. The trees seem more bare than they have the last few months. The air seems crisper, the sun seems weaker, its yellow, more muted. The wind cuts deeper and the rain feels more terminal. The sun just doesn’t impress me as much as I know that its efforts will be easily overrun by the gray, the rain and the wind. Nice try, I tell it. Call me when you’ve really got something to show. The temperatures are in the 50s and 60s most days and drop into the 40s at night so it isn’t awful but it never quite gets warm. And then we read online that Denver has had a record 3 weeks of 90+ degree days and was slotted to see triple digits this past week. Frankly, I’d prefer this so I am done complaining.

We are about to enter our longest stretch without visitors since the first three months we were here. We won’t see anyone until November now. And we won’t have any big trips until the end of September so we are nestled into normal life for 2 months. There are a few restaurants I want to try nearby and I hope to get in the ocean in September for the first time in months. I am going to take an online writing class and I’d like to get together with my new friends some more. I hope Mark gets himself out on the golf course a bit more often and I will try to set up many playdates for the kids during the week. I also want to see the Blue Mountains outside of Sydney and am hoping to sneak away to Melbourne with a friend of mine for an overnight sometime soon. But other than those kinds of things, I am thrilled to have the time to write, to be home with my husband and kids, to turn my face to the sun on the days that it shines unimpeded and to run along the ocean’s threshold as often as I can. I am in no hurry to come home but I miss you all very much.

Dunk Island

We flew on a 12 person plane to Dunk Island. Dunk Island is one of the many islands in the Great Barrier Reef. They are all unique in terms of human visitation and habitation. Dunk is an island with a resort on about 1/20^th of it and the rest of it is untouched National Forest. We arrived on a sunny day and enjoyed some time on the beach the second day but then never saw the sun again until we got back to Newcastle. Not only did we not see the sun but it rained curtains the whole time we were there. And this was their dry season.

They had a kids club which absolutely made the trip for Gabe and Jordan. When they weren’t in the camp, we played a lot of monopoly and cards, read books and made sure to get ourselves out on the covered squash and tennis courts once a day.

It was relaxing, I’ll give it that. But by the third day of non-stop rain, we were all whinging. And poor Jordan got really sick again with a high fever. She stayed in bed most of the last two days.

So that was Dunk Island. I don’t think I have much more to say about it than that. I’m sure it is pretty when the sun shines.

Tropical North Queensland

We’ve returned from Tropical North Queensland after a successful two weeks of adventure. We left on Saturday, July 5^th the day after Mark’s 49^th birthday and America’s 232^nd birthday. There was a noticeable absence of fireworks here. We flew up north to Cairns (pronounced ‘Cans’). We met Diane, Tracy and Andrew up there as they’d gone up two days before us. Together we barely stuffed all 7 of us and our luggage including someone’s golf clubs into a mini-van and drove an hour north to Port Douglas to a 3-bedroom apartment where we stayed for eight days.

Port Douglas reminded me some of Seabrook Island, one of the resort-style barrier islands outside Charleston, South Carolina where my Grandma lives. But it is more wild and tropical than that. The little town hosts 5 blocks of high-end stores and restaurants with diving, boating and snorkeling outfits scattered conveniently throughout the town for tourists to pop in and book their dream trip to the Great Barrier Reef.

These are the Sunday Markets where we watched a skillful man crack open coconuts with a huge machete and stick a straw in them for people to drink.

There are quite a few interesting aspects to the northern tropics of Australia, not the least of which are the resident crocodiles. The relatively small and non-man-eating freshwater crocs thrive in the rivers but they will get scarcely more than a nod on this blog compared to their menacing, spiny, evil-looking giant relatives: The Salties. Saltwater crocodiles are the reason there are signs everywhere warning tourists of their existence. Apparently, Germans need to have it spelled out for them more than any other non-English speaking tourist as all the signs read, “Achtung” (‘danger’ in German) next to the picture of the open-mouthed crocodile.

Salties live in the muddy rivers that flow down from the jungled hills into the ocean but they can also live quite happily in the ocean itself. You just never know. There are signs around areas where crocs have been spotted so we just took their word for it and stayed out of the water altogether. However, Port Douglas, in its civilized way, has one beach that is patrolled and in which it is safe to swim. It’s far enough away from the mouth of the river that crocs aren’t likely to swim up that far.

While we were up there, we saw two crocs on our own, three on a crocodile cruise down the Daintree River and two more in captivity. None of them failed to stop us all in our tracks. But the thing about crocs is that mostly, they don’t move. Especially in the winter (which it is down here right now) because they are in semi-hibernation mode, focusing all their attentions on staying warm enough to remain alive. It is because they don’t move that I found it most interesting how long each of those seven crocs could hold our attention. They were so not moving that they might as well have been made of plaster and yet, we were mesmerized. There’s something indescribably fascinating to human beings, it seems, to see an evil looking prehistoric animal that has not just the power but the inclination to come chasing after us to eat us up. It was as though we could all see blood dripping off its teeth and hear the screams of the person it was currently digesting.

In keeping with the wild carnivorous animal theme, I regretfully report that we only saw two non-venomous tree snakes, though Queensland is the home to more venomous snakes than any other state in Australia and Australia, as many of you know, is chocked full of deadly snakes. We also didn’t see any sharks or deadly jellies. We came across many insects and spiders, but none who wanted to kill us.

Traveling with Diane, Tracy and Andrew was fabulous. Gabe and Andrew played like brothers without the sibling rivalry. The four adults had a wonderful time doing things in all combinations of twos, threes and fours. And Jordan, who earned the Trooper of the Month award, weathered the boys’ antics well and enjoyed some special attention from the adults, especially as there were many mamas to bounce between. She did struggle some from feeling left out and sometimes pushed out but I’m hoping the beaded bracelet she got to make for herself as a special gift for not getting to have her own friend along helped a little. We all spent time on the beach, rode bikes, walked around the shops, ate ice cream and cooked some fabulous dinners together. I can’t say enough how wonderful it is to have our close friends come visit us here.

There were a few days when we went off in search of adventures: a crocodile cruise, an Aboriginal walkabout and presentation, a trip through the Rainforest Discovery Center, Breakfast with the Birds in the Rainforest Habitat and of course, our snorkeling trip on the Great Barrier Reef. As we may have mentioned before, we are not great tour group kinds of people. The kids get bored and Mark and I get boreder. So we didn’t do a lot of that. We spent a day driving around in the rainforest and stopping at several places to get out and walk around in it.

This creature is a tree kangaroo. We'd never heard of or seen anything like it. It hopped like a roo but climbed like a monkey!

I think our general consensus was that the rainforest was “cool” and everything, but we wondered if maybe there was more to it than we were getting by the little roadside samples and views from the beaten paths.

Then one morning, I got up before sunrise in search of hills to run on, something the town of Port Douglas has essentially none of. I drove about 10 minutes into the rainforest and found a good spot. The sun came up and the soft light of morning made me feel safe enough to start running. Within a few minutes, I started to understand the rainforest’s appeal for so many people, ancient Aboriginals and modern-day locals alike. There was a mysterious feeling. I sensed that these hills, thick with vines and palms and big-leafed trees ten stories high held not only snakes and
Cassowaries and parrots and exotic flowers but also secrets, a history and a blueprint to sustain life that defies taming. The Rainforest is often talked about as though the entire forest itself is a living entity. That morning, looking up at the mist nestled into the sides of the dense green hills, the diversity of plant life leaning over the road that had been carved out of its mid-section, I understood. It is not a place I’d like to live. It is not even a place I need to go back to any time soon because it doesn’t feel habitable to me. There are some people who are drawn to live in that part of the world but it seems to me that their attempts at doing so have been just barely allowed and accepted by the land. There are so many things they have to take into consideration—deadly animals, a whole season of torrential rains, half a year when the ocean is unsafe to stick a toe in (due to deadly box jelly fish) and humidity that can slow people down to snail’s pace (which I know is part of the appeal for many) but that keeps most everything from ever drying. Mold appears on bread within days. Clothes don’t dry, long, curly hair doesn’t dry, kids shoes don’t dry. So it is not a place I’d like to live but it is a place I’m glad I’ve experienced.

When 7 people get together for a week, there are bound to be some unforgettable comments made. I will spare you the bulk of them but there were two that were funny enough that, while cognizant that I’m risking telling you some of those ‘had-to-be-there’ sort of stories, I’m going to share with you anyway. The first comment came one afternoon when we were having some down time back at the apartment--not the kids’ favorite time of the day, as you might imagine. Andrew, who was experiencing a severe case of restlessness but who had enough cunning to know that complaining about it was not a good idea, came to Diane and said,

“Mom? I’m boredish.”

Translation: I’m excruciatingly bored but I know that I’ll get in trouble if I tell you that so I’m not going to come right out and say it but I am going to test the waters to see what you will say if I confess my true feelings about our painfully understimulating situation right now.

The other funny comment was when we were driving in the mini-van, all 7 of us, on an hour-long ride to Cairns for the day. At the beginning of the drive, the kids were already silly and wild in the back row. Diane, in her wisest parental voice said to them, “Why don’t you guys just relax, close your eyes and enjoy the scenery.”

Okay, I guess you had to be there afterall.

Sadly, after our 8 days as a 7-person family, we had to say good-bye to Diane, Tracy and Andrew. We also packed everything up and got on a plane ourselves but we still had 5 more days of vacation left. To be continued on the next blog...

Birds of Queensland

Here are some birds of Queensland. We visited a Rainforest Habitat one day and ate brekkie (breakfast) with these birds.